• Starter Kit for your gerbil
• What toys and cage accessories are safe for my gerbil? (same as starter kit)
• What foods are safe & unsafe to give my gerbil?
• What medicines are safe & unsafe for my gerbil?
• Help for small caged animals with chest congestion.

Starter Kit for Gerbils:

Cage - Gerbils love to dig, so the best cage for them is a large roomy glass tank.
You want to buy the largest tank you can afford and make sure you purchase a secure fitting lid along with it.

Bedding - Paper based bedding such as Carefresh brand is ideal as well as any other paper based. I’ve known some people to use a combination type tank with sand or peat moss on one end, piled very deep so they can make networks of tunnels and a less deep area of paper where they stored food and water dishes.

Wheel - Gerbils like hamsters use wheels. The wire mesh wheels provide tons of fun for them to climb about on and play. Do not use a runged type wheel as it can easily trap and break a little leg. Hanging the wheel from the top is ideal for those gerbils that tend to bury everything!

Bowl - You should use a metal bowl that you can fasten to the side of the cage somehow or you can simply feed them ‘au natural’ by sprinkling the food on the cage bedding. Gerbils tend to bury bowls left on the surface.

Water Bottles - Gerbils need fresh water at all times so a nice bottle hanging in the cage is perfect. Be aware that they will also pile up bedding under the spout and this WILL cause a ‘wick’ effect and drain the water from the bottle and wet all the surrounding bedding. Get creative! make a ‘staircase’ to access a bottle hung up very high in the cage so they cannot pile bedding under it!

Food - Commercially made gerbil food is abundant in pet supply stores. Adding some healthy treats from your kitchen will also benefit your gerbils immensely. See out food charts for healthy foods for gerbils.

House - The sky’s the limit with houses for gerbils! Stores have ‘edible huts’ that serve a dual purpose - helps keep teeth trimmed and healthy and provides temporary living quarters till they chew it all up! Or you can simply insert empty clean cartons from old cereal boxes and other foods you eat that are also safe for gerbils.
DO NOT use any plastic houses for gerbils as they will chew them to bits in no time! Ingesting plastic bits will cause great harm to your pets!

Toys - Gerbils like to do two things - dig tunnels and chew. Any wooden chew sticks, pieces of tree branches that are cleaned, anything you can find made of wood they will love to have and chew on and to use as supports for their tunnels. They also love cereal boxes or any type of lightweight cardboard. I save every box from cereal to ice cream sandwiches! They will need a new box every couple of days.

* Keep in mind that any items that are chewable will be chewed so choosing your items carefully is a must. It has been known that some animals have had problems with plastic and ingesting the small chewed off bits. If you see your gerbil or any other small caged animal chewing too aggressively and it concerns you, take the plastic out, especially the chewed off bits and either replace these things often or find wood or safer items like paper or cardboard to give them.

Medicines that are safe to use for your gerbils:

Baytril or chlortetracycline - respiratory ailments. Always see a veterinarian if you suspect any kind of respiratory ailment or infection.

Neosporin - safe to use on wounds

Tetracyclene - used to combat tyzzers epedemics
 

The Mongolian Gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) is the gerbil you are most likely to find in a pet shop. It is native to the desert and semi-desert regions of Mongolia and north eastern China.
They are often referred to as the "clawed jird".

In the wild they have very keen senses and easily camouflaged against predators with their sandy coloured coats and white belly which reflects the heat.

Pet gerbils of today are larger and come in a great variety of colours which extends to the tip of their furry tail....This conceals them very well in the wild.

The pet Gerbil is active during the day and night which makes him a great pet for children and adults alike. They are extremely clean little animals as they use food and water very efficiently and so produce little waste and no odour .They have excellent hearing and communicate by vibrations...Drumming their hind legs rapidly on the ground. Their strong hind legs also make them excellent `jumpers`.

The gerbil has a scent gland underneath which they use to mark their territory and helps members of a community to recognise each other.

Like hamsters, their teeth continue to grow so they must have a good variety of wooden toys to gnaw and chew. Mine like the hanging wooden bird toys and `safe` branches, with a deep layer of paper based litter for them to tunnel through in the base of the cage.

Mine are housed in Gerbilariums so they have the best of both worlds. ...A deep tank for the base and bars over the top. They love toilet and kitchen rolls to run through and chew and will shred any cardboard very quickly!!! Most love a sand bath too and it keeps their coat nice and shiny.

They are most entertaining to watch and look so cute when a head pops up from nowhere, front paws up and a little inquisitive face looking at you.

They are very sociable, friendly and good natured little animals. They will live very happily in same sex pairs or groups. If a group of males scent a female however, they will fight and must be separated immediately.

Lifespan - 3 to 4 years.

About Gerbils

~ by Jill Barker ©

~ by Joan A Walker ©

~ by Joan A Walker ©

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. 

* All information on this page belongs to Wanda's Pet World and is subject to copyright laws. If you find any information you wish to use please contact the site administrator for written permission. Any copyright infringement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

NEW!

FIREFOX WARNING:
although I do check across multiple browsers when building this site, Firefox will ALWAYS give you errors. I cannot help this. Its FF.
There are page elements and features missing that are there in Internet Explorer 7 and Maxthon.
There are NO unusual scripts on this site.
Please view my sites in IE or Maxthon

I apologize- there is only so much I can do about this.